Oh, right. I forgot about the nailbiting cliffhanger, leaving us to wonder if four people are going to be eliminated this week. If your cliffhangers elicit nothing more than annoyance and eyerolls, maybe rethink them?
On the plus side, I've reached that point in the season where I completely love this year's opening credits sequence and can't imagine them being any other way, so there's that.
Anyway, where were we? Oh, right! Dan, Ray, Nedra and Mary are all standing in front of Ramsay, awaiting the falling axe. Ramsay announces they're all on probation and will have to earn their jackets back by the end of the dinner service, or else they're history. Anthony has this hilarious "he's gone mad with power!" look on his face.
The teams are kicked out to go act like babies over the whole thing. While Mary and Nedra are scared but largely positive, determined to win their jackets back, Dan is apparently mad at everything, and his teammates want him to chill out. "Be a man and prove that shit," says -- wait, who's the guy with the funky Mohawk-ish hair who isn't the other guy with Mohawk-ish hair?
So the morning we learn the challenge has to do with Chinese food, and the sound effects guys go crazy with the goddamn gongs all over the soundtrack, and now Zach is yelling at us that he's from the hood and so he likes Chinese food, and lists EVERY GODDAMN RESTAURANT HE KNOWS.
Each team is going to create versions of chow mein, spring rolls, dumplings, Chinese soup (pssst! In China they call it "soup!") and stir-fry. Dan is that guy who is all "I lived in China for a year so I'm practically Chinese" and figures he's going to nail it.
Because we have to hit as many stereotypical cultural touchstones as possible, Ramsay points at a dish with two-hundred fortune cookies containing the ingredients, that the teams have to carry around with chopsticks, only when they go racing to start the competition, what appeared to have been a statue of an ancient Chinese warrior turns out to be very much alive, freaking everyone out.
Ramsay then scolds them for thinking the competition was going to be that dumb, and the REAL fortune cookies are wheeled out -- huge multicoloured things the size of footballs. "I lived in Asia for a year," Dan tells his team while they discuss who's going to man the board where they sort the ingredients. It turns out he and Ray will because HAHAHAHA! Ramsay can't believe it. On the Red side, Ja'Nel and Jacqueline will be handling the board. "I can't fuck this up," Dan tells us. Aw, I have faith in you, Dan!
The competition gets underway, with the Blue team continuing to talk about Asia as if it is a country. "I thought you went to Asia!" says Ray at one point. Anyway, when the dust settles, the Red team is short one ingredient in five of their six dishes. Ja'Nel and Jackie blew it, seems to be the consensus, but doesn't it also have to do with how fast their teammates retrieved the fortune cookies?
Anyway, let the cooking commence! Much more confidence on the Blue side, except for Anthony, who has never made chow mein. He says it's "literally catastrophically terrible," whatever that's supposed to mean. On Red, Mary's working for Cindy, and regretting not doing a dish by herself, since she's fighting for her jacket and everything.
Anyway, time for the judging, which will be done by Martin Yan. Boooo! Stephen Yan forever!
Fried rice dish! This is Dan's dish, and he's still cocky because of that year in Asia when he lived in Asia for a year, living in Asia and eating Asian food. Jacqueline brings up Red's with firm tofu, chili pepper, scallions, rice wine vinegar and bean sprouts. Yan thinks it works. Dan's has coconut milk, loosely crushed peanuts and sweet and spicy glazed prawns. Yan, though, says the rice is a little undercooked. "DAMN, IS THAT HOW THEY SERVED THE RICE IN ASIA WHEN YOU LIVED THERE FOR A YEAR?!" yells Zach at us. I'm starting to really love Zach. Yan picks Red's dish. "Hey, Dan, go back to Asia for another year," Anthony tells us.
Up , the stir-fry. Jon's noodles, sea scallops and sesame oil. Yan calls it amazing. Jessica's stir-fry isn't even a stir-fry and she complains about not having very many ingredients to work with, and Ramsay warns for her to stuff the excuses in front of the chef she's serving. Point to Blue.
Barret's zesty lime spring roll takes on Nedra's peanut Sriracha spring roll. Point for Blue. Ray's crab dumpling loses to Cindy's honey soy dumpling, and then Ja'Nel's lemongrass red miso soup fights Michael's sweet and sour halibut soup to a draw. So it's tied three-three, with Yan obviously getting the memo reminding him that it always needs to come down to the final dish, which is, naturally, chow mein. Susan brings up a rice noodle with pork and crushed cashews. Yan likes the flavor, but says he'd prefer a little more contrast, such as with green onion. Anthony's is a wheat and rice noodle chow mein, with daikon and candied ginger. So it turns out to be good, and not "literally catastrophically terrible," I guess. Yan picks Blue, which I think everyone saw coming from Anthony being cocky over Dan's rice failure.
Dan and Ray get their jackets back from Ramsay, and Blue team's reward is a surprise; Ramsay tells them to head upstairs to get changed. As for Red, they've got to prep for tonight's dinner service, including beef potstickers and steamed dumplings.
While Red is cleaning up the kitchens, Blue come sauntering through, clapping their hands. "What goes around comes around, bitches! Take that, skanks!" Dan tells us. Good GOD he's odious.
The reward is paintball, which allows the men to act like even bigger jackasses than normal, and apparently the point of the game was just to shoot at Dan, which I think we can all get behind.
Let's check in with Red, shall we? Apparently the prep work is very tedious. What's even more tedious? Listening to them moan about the tedious prep work. Anyway, their gross snack break is a balut egg, which is apparently the fertilized embryo boiled and eaten in the shell, which almost had me heaving up my guts right there, given that I think REGULAR EGGS are disgusting. And they apparently HAVE to eat these things? As Nedra says, going to commercial break, "This is nasty."
Looks like most of the retching was done off camera, thank god. The women are back to work, when the men come trotting back in, still wearing the camouflage from their paintball game.
Pre-dinner pep talk! Ramsay they're launching the chef's tables tonight; in Blue's will be Rex Lee, who was Ari's assistant on entourage. Anthony calls him the "crème de la crème" and they have to get this right. Red will be cooking for Adam Shankman. Aww, who doesn't love Adam Shankman?!
Jean-Phillipe opens the dining room. Ja'Nel and Ray are wheeling around a "tableside" dim sum cart (as opposed to dim sum buffet? COME ON, Hell's Kitchen!). Nedra nails some risotto and gets her jacket back. In Blue, Jon and Anthony are praised by Ramsay for how well their appetizers are doing. But Ray is slow with the dim sum, and he's complaining that his team are "killing" him by doing too good a job on their appetizers, I guess. "Oh, fuck off, Ray," groans Ramsay, when Ray requests another one to replace the one that went cold because of his slowness.
The chef's table guests arrive. And now Mary nails some risotto and gets her jacket back, so no one was eliminated from last week's episode (since Jeremy really was the elimination from the show before).
And now Susan is ... I don't know, terrible on chicken? I can't keep track anymore. I'm glad Zach is serving the chef's table. "HOW IS EVERYTHING REX LEE CAN I GET YOU ANYTHING." Then Barret serves up some raw shrimp for the VIP table, and gets yelled at by Ramsay. Susan thinks Ramsay must be confident in her since he put her on meat by herself. Or perhaps he's hoping to have to screw up royally so he can yell at you for the benefit of the show. Related: Susan makes some raw lamb, and then blames the oven for not cooking the lamb any faster. It's probably also the oven's fault when she dumps the lamb on the floor, and Hell's Kitchen doesn't follow the five-second rule philosophy, I see. At the chef's table, Shankman deadpans, "I'm highly aware that they screwed up our order." He's the fucking best.
Susan's delay on the lamb and inability to properly tell her teammates when she'll be ready screws up her teammates, too. Dan, meanwhile, is doing well on meat, and has no problem telling anyone within earshot. Finally Shankman and his guests get their food (despite last week's previews making it look like they stomped out angry and hungry), but then Jessica serves up raw halibut.
The men are down to their last set of entrees (perfect Wellingtons by Dan) but they're waiting on halibut from Barret. Ramsay sends out the Wellingtons, and figures the halibut will be along shortly, but after it gets served up, he gathers everyone around to point out some sort of problem that we don't see. Blue team recoils in horror, and we go to commercial.
When we get back, we see that Barret has served up fish with the parchment paper still in it, and there's not much to be done but start over (fortunately, Hell's Kitchen is powered by Ramsay's sneers). Red is also on their last ticket, and both teams complete the service at more or less the same time, from what we're shown (Zach apologizing profusely to the table that nearly got paper fish).
During the debrief, Ramsay slams their ridiculous errors, and declares both team the losers, so each team has to nominate two chefs for elimination. Dan's massive ego means he's no so much worried about the team losing because he did so well.
Over in Red, Susan is tired of Jessica (and everyone) pointing out how terrible she did, and vows not to go down without a fight.
In Blue, Jon suggests Barret, and the second pick seems to be Ray, at least until Anthony says Ramsay always reminds them that they should nominate the weakest links on the team, not just who did terribly during the most recent service. So on that basis, he's nominating Dan. You can imagine how well Dan takes it.
The teams file back into the kitchen, and Red announces Jessica and Susan are the nominees for lack of communication, inconsistent timing, etc. Dan has to announce himself as the first nominee. "I'm the weakest member of the team, chef," he says, facetiously, pointing out how he kicked ass tonight. Jon defends the decision by saying he's constantly "slipping through the cracks." After the commercial break, we find out the second nominee is Ray.
Anyway, Jessica says she has much more to give (Ramsay thinks she threw out more fish than she served tonight). Susan goes for a "See how fierce I am" attitude and declares that he'll be proud of her. Ramsay is in no mood, however. As for Ray, Ramsay's getting mighty sick of seeing him standing up there. Dan, not unreasonably, says he'll let his performance tonight speak for itself. Ramsay asks who should be up there instead, then, and Dan gives up Barret, who says it's not about tonight, but who the weakest link on the team is.
Ramsay says his decision is Dan... but it's a back-in-line fakeout (Dan cackles, "Ha ha, that's right" instead of NOT being cocky for two seconds). Anthony in particular seems distressed by this. Ramsay says he's staying because, as shown tonight, he can fucking cook. So who is leaving? Jessica. "I'm not feeling you. I haven't got any more patience," says Ramsay, as he takes her jacket.
Jessica, outside, tells us she tried to come across as confident and strong, and it got mistaken for lack of passion. It's never that they can't cook, is it? She acknowledges she might not have put up enough fight for Ramsay to believe in her. Anthony points out to us that it's not a question of Dan being able to cook, because they can all cook. "There's going to be no living with this kid after this," he says. Ha! Sure enough, Dan has apparently decided to adopt a me-first, team-last philosophy. Wait, he thought he was being a good teammate until now? Susan plans to fight and win.
Ramsay says that when Jessica arrived, he had high hopes for her. You ... did? More than any other contestant? "Unfortunately, she let us both down." Hell, I'm just happy we ended an episode with an elimination for once.
Daniel is a writer in Newfoundland with a wife and a daughter. Clearly, episode needs to have a literal death match between Anthony and Dan. On this show, that's as rare as unicorns. Follow him on Twitter (@DanMacEachern) or email him at danieljdaniel@gmail.com.